They had been in velox for twenty minutes before Reyer felt good enough to sit up. She was limping her way over to what she was already thinking of as her bench when Vas called out, “Will you be all right?”

She lowered herself onto the measly cushion. “As much as I can be, yes. It’s not usually this painful, Captain Vas, but I’ve been a lot more active today than I have been in a long time.”

“The Tranomine?”

“Already working. Just give me some time, Captain.”

He saw her glance back toward the door where her soggy kit was still sitting. Before she could say anything, he went, grabbed it, and brought it over to her.

“Your friend knows how to pick a good kit bag,” he said.

Reyer took it with a grateful smile. “He should. I’m the one who taught him how.”

Vas sat down on the center bench near her as she pulled out the pill bottle and checked to see if they were ruined from the water.

“How long will we be in velox?” she asked.

Adan turned to the cockpit. “Lynx?”

“Thirty-seven hours, twenty minutes, and three seconds. Approximately.”

The captain turned back to Alix. “I can’t run the heat much warmer. You may want to get out of those wet clothes.”

“And change into what?” She held up her pack. A thick trickle of water dribbled to the deck. “Everything I have is wet.”

He chuckled. “Yes, but I do have some dry blankets. Velox chill is no joke on a small ship.”

“Maybe later, Captain.” She was looking at the reader’s case, which appeared to be intact. When she removed the reader, it slid neatly out in one piece. Alix smiled. “I didn’t think it would make it.”

“It’s the best model they have.”

She turned it on. The transparent plate flickered orange and brought up a menu screen. “Ah! That’s one of the most beautiful sights in the galaxy.”

Vas patted her knee twice. “If you say so.” He stood up. “If you need anything, call out for me or Lynx.”

“Yes, Captain.” She was already scrolling through the one million Old Earth titles they had been able to fit on the device.

A few minutes later, she yelled up to the pilot’s seat. “Vas?”

“Yes, Miss Reyer?”

“What does bella mean?”

There was an infinitesimal pause. “It’s just a name.”

Alix lowered the reader. “You come from Mesa Rojo, and you’re telling me you don’t know what the word bella means?”

“Uhhhhh…I think it means beautiful.”

“Thank you, Captain.” She went back to her reader.

Lynx said, “Sir, were you aware the blood vessels in your face are dilating at an—”

“Lynx, shut up.”

Reyer stared at the title Beautiful Thorn. She had found it searching for works by her favorite author, but she was certain he had never published anything by that name. She tapped it, and a new screen opened. The header read, “Official Report Regarding the Mission on Geonon One.”

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

“What are you reading?” Vas called back.

Her eyes never stopped moving over the screen. “An interesting piece of fiction.”

When he saw the intensity of her expression, he decided to leave her alone and let her read.

[https://i.imgur.com/6iM8gcI.png]

Ivan had been nervous. Even sitting across the ship with the other three sergeants, that had been easy to see. As she had watched him fidget, she had felt a sense of sick unease growing in her stomach. She had requested that he be placed with her team. The other sergeants may have shared a few knowing glances, but none of them had commented. It was just as well; she wouldn’t have explained her reasoning if they had.

Geonon One’s permanent cloud cover had made it easy to get in undetected. The surface was bitterly cold, but nothing that required a suit. They landed in the dark forests and made their way to the underground supply base.

It occurred to her later that the poor men who’d been assigned guard duty for that day must have done something to irritate their commanding officer, but at the time, she felt only grateful there were so few of them. She sniped three of them off by herself. The others were taken out by the rest of her team.

Weeks before, a scout had managed to send out a map before he was captured. It had been accurate enough that placing the bombs was simple, but rather than relief, her sense of dread became more and more pronounced. As the last of the bombs were being laid at the end of one of the caves the Supremacy had blasted out to serve as a tunnel, she looked around.

“Where’s Rurik?”

The rest of the team hadn’t answered. His face hadn’t been among them.

She remembered shouting at them as she raised her XM4, telling them to pull out.

One of them yelled that the bomb was almost armed.

She should have made them move. She had known something was wrong. There was nothing she could point to, nothing she could explain, but she had been on too many missions, and she had known something about that one hadn’t felt right. She backed out of the cave, trying to get a signal from her com, calling for any of the other teams to answer. There was no response.

The light of an e-shot crashed against a rock wall beside her and dispersed. When she came around the corner, her gun leading, she saw Ivan lower his weapon. The woman she had left on watch was dead at his feet. Beside him was a Supremacy officer.

Before she had time to take in what she was seeing, a series of blasts rocked the cave—one after another, each one closer than before. She never figured out if the Supremacy had blown the bombs early to bury them all or if one of the other teams started the chain reaction because they knew they were going to die anyway.

The bomb behind her exploded. She was thrown to the ground as the cave began collapsing. When she raised her head, she could make out Ivan and the officer through the settling chaos. The Supremacy man had Rurik in his arms, one hand clasped on his skull. The blood from the officer’s head wound was dripping onto Rurik’s face.

The darkness was closing over her vision. Blurs and spots distorted everything. Alix Reyer wouldn’t trust much of what she saw in those moments, but ever after that, she was certain the Supremacy officer had looked up at her—and he had recognized her. Then she fell unconscious.

When she came to, she tried to move her legs but found she couldn’t. Reaching down to her vest, she pulled out an emergency messenger.

She whispered into it, “We’ve been betrayed,” then threw it as hard as she could toward what was left of the cave entrance. The small metal ball rolled past three bodies: Anne Ward, Ivan Rurik, and an unknown Supremacy officer.

[https://i.imgur.com/6iM8gcI.png]

“Alix?”

A hand was on her shoulder.

She started awake with a violent wrench. The movement shot through her back wrong. Her half-drawn knife clattered to the floor.

Adan was kneeling beside her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Reyer had to blow her hair out of her face so that she could adequately give him the mean look he so richly deserved.

“You were sleeping pretty deep,” he said. “Nightmare?”

She untangled the blanket she’d partly thrown off. “We all have them.”

There didn’t seem to be anything to add to that. Instead of answering, Vas picked up her weapon. “Knife,” he said, handing it to her. When she took it, he held out his other hand. “Tranomine.”

She took that as well and reached for her canteen to help swallow them.

“We’re out of velox,” Vas said, “and we’ll be landing shortly, Miss Reyer.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Reyer screwed down the lid to her canteen.

Vas turned to go back to the cockpit. “Are you looking forward to seeing the general again?”

“I am,” Reyer said, sitting up. “I have something to return to her.”